


Bring Your Daughter To Work Day

by jazztrousers



Series: 221-Bea (apis mellifera-verse) [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Gen, M/M, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-09
Updated: 2013-09-18
Packaged: 2017-12-04 18:44:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 18,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/713840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jazztrousers/pseuds/jazztrousers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sequel of sorts to 'apis mellifera'. The adventures of Sherlock, John and Bea.<br/>Mostly unrelated drabbles from various POVs. Fluff, angst, smut, you name it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sherlock- Fractals

**Author's Note:**

> I told you I was going to keep writing Bea. I can't seem to stop. Enjoy the ride.

Return to flat after incredibly tedious morning with Lestrade. Case not worth leaving the sofa, let alone Baker Street.

John and Bea asleep on sofa together, John sprawled out as if he’d fallen, Bea curled up on his chest like a cat.

Feel stab of fondness in chest.

John- husband. Bea- daughter. A stranger could be forgiven for assuming biological relation, both have sandy blonde hair, blue eyes, determined jaw.

Wonder at own place in happy picture before eyes. Alone for so long, now a husband, father. Giver and receiver of love and care, hard to remember why idea remained rejected for so long.

Alone protects no-one. Alone is a bluff, bluffs get called, people die (or at least pretend to).

Families protect? Consider notion, find it sound in logic. Have ‘died’ for John. Would kill for John. Would do same for Bea without a moment’s thought. Wouldn’t even bother throwing potential attacker out of window like the time with Mrs Hudson. Would probably just tear out jugular with own teeth.

Primal instinct. Protecting young.

John opens eyes, smiles. Much lighter sleeper than Bea. Says my name. Say his back.

Stand and smile, be smiled at. So much sentimentality in this moment, can’t even bring self to feel usual disgust. Feel glad at providing John with a family, he deserves one. Definite husband and father material, have known this since shooting of cabbie.

Bea wakes too. Doesn’t say my name. Says “Daddy?” instead.

Rooted to the spot. Fizzy emotional sensation in stomach and throat. Word pulls at something deep inside, the bit that would rip out jugulars. Paternal instinct. Love, so much love.

“Hi.” Completely ineloquent. Can’t make words, no words fit.

Go over to sofa and join in embrace. Kiss Bea’s hair, kiss John’s lips. Close eyes.

Low on caffeine. Slept for 2 hours last night. Nowhere else to be.

Face crushed into John’s stomach, Bea’s foot in ribs.

Sleep like the dead. Never been so comfortable.

 


	2. John- Sugar Daddy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to my neighbour who is practising the tuba. Keep it up, dude/lady.

“I’ve been ‘Papa’ for a few days now.” John says from the bathroom doorway.

Sherlock makes a noise in response that is half ‘oh, that’s interesting’ and half ‘I’m trying to brush my teeth’.

“Do you like being ‘Daddy’?” he asks.

Sherlock spits toothpaste into the sink. “It’s quite nice, I suppose.”

John smiles, Sherlock’s indifference is badly-acted. His eyes have been shining all day.

“What did you call your father?”

Sherlock makes a gargling sound from where he is crushing his head into the sink to try and get his mouth under one of the taps.

“What was that?”

“Creighton? Professor Holmes? I can’t remember. Does it matter? Ask Mycroft, he remembers him.”

“What did Mycroft call him, then?” John probes as they climb into bed.

“Father. Always Father says this, Father says that. I saw so little of the man I started to wonder if he was made up, like Father Christmas. Mycroft worshipped him.”

“Does Mycroft look like him?”

“No, Mycroft looks like Mummy. I look like Creighton, apparently.”

“Harry and I both look like our mum.” John confides.

Sherlock nods. “Did you like her calling you Papa?”

“Yeah,” he admits. “It felt great. Nearly cried. I’m turning into such a sentimental old bugger these days.”

Sherlock raises his eyebrows in a way that says he is holding back a sarcastic comment.

“Yeah, alright, _more_ sentimental, then. You’ve got no room to judge me.”

“And why is that?”

“Because you’re a closet cuddle-whore.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard what I said. You can’t get enough. You’re always hanging off me or snuggling up with Bea. And don’t think I don’t know about Molly’s head rubs.”

“She enjoys those just as much.”

“You’re lucky I’m the kind of husband that doesn’t mind you putting your face between a woman’s legs.”


	3. Sherlock- Chemical Defects

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Strap yourself in for the most anatomically accurate porn you've ever read, yo.  
> Also, your comments and reviews make me feel like a puppy rolling in stardust. <3

Bea downstairs with Mrs Hudson. Bea loves spending time with her, has started calling her ‘Granny’. Mrs Hudson not offended, has also recently added Bea’s favourite types of smoothies to her weekly shopping (mango and apple, orange and passionfruit).

(Why is that information in the Mind Palace? Can’t get it out. Must be stored in same place as “John’s favourite song is ‘Give Me Shelter’ by the Rolling Stones” and “John is easily bribed with any chocolate and honeycomb sweet e.g. Malteasers or Crunchie”. Why.)

Find self without Bea for the first time in three days. Pace the living room.

What to do? Bea takes up so much of daily activities now. Haven’t been bored in ages.

Coping mechanisms for boredom woefully underdeveloped to start with, now woefully underdeveloped and _rusty_ , this will surely end in some kind of fiery explosion.

No cases. Lestrade on holiday with new girlfriend ( _Polish, telesales job, early twenties, far too young for him, reminds her of her father)._

Pause pacing. Discover hand (John’s) on left buttock. Then right buttock. Both squeeze.

“Excuse me.” No response from John.

Teeth scraping over neck vertebrae. Earlobe sucked into mouth.

Transport glitch- knees wobble. Stumble slightly.

“John, you are fondling my arse in quite an aggressive fashion.”

Still nothing.

Three days since last sexual activity. Have either been busy or too tired or had childcare duties.

Hands removed, John now rubbing erect penis against back of thigh.

John’s libido frankly staggering for male of his age.

Feign irritation. “You’re always chastising me for my lack of social niceties. You can’t just come over here and start groping me without even a hello.”

“Hello, Sherlock. I’m feeling very horny and I’d appreciate your help.”

Laugh quietly. “What kind of help do you want?”

“The kind that involves your cock.”

Smirk. Let it never be said that I am not a helpful man.

Turn 180 degrees, start untucking shirt from trousers and undoing belt buckle. Dragged downwards into a kiss.

John: pupils dilated. Respiration and pulse highly elevated. Skin flushed. Cutis anserine- gooseflesh. High level of sexual arousal, can practically smell it on him.

Fingers clutching hair borderline painful. Involuntary noise muffled by tongues in mouths.

John kindly assists in removal of lower clothing. Already fully erect, have been since groping and neck-biting. Unfair advantage, John aware of all my weak spots. Likely only a matter of time before onslaught of nipple-pinching and more ear-sucking.

Decide to retaliate. Force John down onto knees, cup jaw with left hand, present him with cock with right. John’s weak spot: giving/receiving orders. Obvious link to military training embedded in subconscious.

John obliges immediately. Sensation of tongue, lips, mouth on glans, frenulum, perineal raphe. Overwhelming, close eyes involuntarily. Suction gentle but firm.

Force eyes open. Observe slight bobbing of John’s head, admire shiny saliva on lips.

(Ponder lip gloss in females: designed to emulate appearance of giving saliva-wet fellatio? Looks wonderful on John.)

John sucks left testicle into mouth. Own mouth produces truly embarrassing sound.

“E-enough.” Voice unreasonably hoarse, realise I have been panting.

John ceases pleasuring me and stands. He is naked. Clothes in pile next to where he was kneeling.

When did John disrobe? Brain obviously shutting down all non-reproductive protocols, am becoming unobservant. Will only get worse from here.

(Remember a time could not remember own name during particularly vigorous application of John’s tongue to anus. Cheeks fill with blood- embarrassment.)

John now lying on back on sofa, thighs spread wide.

“Come here.” he commands. “Bring lube.”

Find being bossed around by John strangely compelling. Find self searching bathroom cabinet for KY jelly with shaking hands.

(Remember another time John dug out military uniform. Was ordered to lick John’s boots, called “good little slut” when complied. Blush harder, _oh fucking hell_. Cock aches.)

Return to John with lubricant and unbutton shirt. Forget to actually remove it.

Apply lubricant generously to fingers, slowly insert one into John’s anus. Will hands to stop shaking. Observe fluttering and clutching sensation of sphincter muscles around finger. Contract, relax.

John makes very gratifying noises upon addition of second digit. Breathy, hungry grunting sounds. Filled with impatience, want to be fucking John.

“Yeah,” he gasps, “hurry the fuck up then.”

Realise have said “ _I want to fuck you_ ” out loud. All available blood gone from brain. Probably could not solve even basic cognitive tests at present.

Spend roughly thirty seconds longer preparing John before withdrawing fingers. Apply lube to length of cock, stroke self a few times.

Carefully begin penetration. World flickers like dodgy television set. Nails dig into shoulderblades, legs wrap around back.

“God, Sherlock,” in ear. “You feel incredible.”

Look down at John. Eyes hazy with oxytocin, dopamine. Love, bonding, attachment.

Begin rhythmic thrusting of pelvis. Pressure of John’s internal muscles beyond words.

Sofa squeaks. Hope we aren’t being too vocal. Bea and Mrs Hudson downstairs.

John works a hand between us. Pinches right nipple. Bite down on lower lip to stifle moaning.

“Come on,” he encourages, “faster, God, yes, like that, please…”

Pulls at nipple. Hips buck involuntarily, John cries out loudly.

No more words, just panting and sound of skin slapping together. John constricts tighter and tighter, cock starting to throb.

Testicles tighten, orgasm approaches. Try to express this to John, syllables leave throat in no order. John somehow still understands, nods.

“Me too, just- ah, fuck, keep going, just a bit more…”

Moves hand lower, begins tugging and stroking his cock. Press face into juncture of neck and shoulder, feel strange whining sound building in chest.

Orgasm begins in base of spine like electrical current. Spasm wildly through ejaculation. Dimly aware of John’s pulsing grip, also ejaculating onto stomach.

Eventually grind hips to a halt. Brain flooded with… chemicals of some kind. Can’t remember. Feels good. Heroin and cocaine cheap, paltry imitations.

Smile lazily at John. Can barely move eyelids.

“I needed that.” he says, laughs.

Nod in agreement. Kiss him. Kiss him over and over.

Mumble “Love you.” into jaw.

Hand in hair. John smiles. “I love you too.”

Exhausted.

 

Wash and dress self, as does John. Go to retrieve Bea.

Receive extremely knowing smile from Mrs Hudson.

Hug Bea, feels incongruous with events of less than half an hour ago. Wonder if she can somehow tell. Not yet, likely in years to come.

Symphony of chemical reactions inside brain.

 _Sentiment is a chemical defect found on the losing side_ \- self.

Must be incredibly far gone by now, because it doesn’t feel like losing at all.

Ponder own words. Perhaps spoken out of ignorance. There is no victory in isolating oneself.

Spend afternoon helping Bea practice writing. Admire her simple joy at being able to correctly reproduce legible letters. A child has so much more capacity for joy than an adult, feel bitter that own life used to simply revolve around The Work and Getting High.

Am not very bright sometimes.

Long live the losing side.


	4. Bea- Down The Road I Go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to everyone who said they wanted to see Uncle Mycroft. Here he is.

Hello! My name is Bea. I’m five and I live in London.

Today I got kidnapped. Here is the story!

It started like any other day- Papa said this is a good way to start any story. Unless your day started funny, then you should say that. But it didn’t, it was just normal.

Me, Daddy and Papa had breakfast and talked about dogs. It was a Debate- a debate is where you talk about something, and not everyone thinks the same thing.

Me and Papa think that we should have a dog. Dogs are important, they bring you the newspaper and can smell things from really far away. Daddy does not want a dog. Daddy wants rats instead.

I like rats, but if we had a dog, he could eat them. We did not get a Conclusion, or a dog, or any rats.

Papa took me to school before he went to work. The part where I went to school isn’t important.

I painted a picture of a butterfly and some leaves, and at lunchtime I played Business Ladies with Nita Patel. We fired lots of people, it was funny. Nita fired Peter Garett and he cried!

The important part is when school finished. I was waiting at the front for Daddy or Papa to come get me.

Daddy and Papa are good in different ways. When Papa comes to get me, he brings me snacks and juice. When Daddy comes to get me, he doesn’t bring anything I can eat, but he sometimes has cool things from murders and tells me interesting things. Once he had a lady’s fingernail in a bag!

Instead, a posh lady got out of a very posh car, and came over to me.

“Bea?” she asked, and smiled. She had dark red lips and very white teeth.

“Yup!” I said. I took her hand and got into the posh car. She had diamonds on her fingers.

Now. That wasn’t good, I know. I’m not supposed to get into cars with people I don’t know, in case they are kidnappers. Daddy and Papa were Very Clear about that.

But.

I really wanted to. It was such a shiny posh car. I had to know who was in it.

Here is what Papa calls a plot twist- the kidnapper was my uncle!

Papa said my uncle is not very good at making friends, so sometimes he kidnaps people for a chat. Daddy is not very good at making friends either, but he doesn’t kidnap people. But Daddy doesn’t really like to chat much either.

Anyway. My uncle is called Mycroft and he is Daddy’s big brother. He is tall, like Daddy, but he has light-coloured hair and isn’t skinny like Daddy. He smiles more, too.

“Hello, Bea.” He said, and smiled big at me. Then he explained that he was my uncle.

I said that I liked his car.

He asked if I like chocolate cake and museums.

I really, really do like all kinds of cake, and museums, so I said yes.

He took me to the Natural History museum right in the middle of London, and it was SO COOL.

I saw skeletons, swords, dinosaurs, dresses that old-timey princesses wore, all kinds of stuff. Then me and Uncle went to the café and he got me cake and a smoothie! It was super fun. Uncle is really clever and funny and nice. When my feet hurt he carried me on his shoulders!

While Uncle was eating his cheesecake his phone started to ring. He looked at me in a way that said ‘whoops, I’m in trouble’, and when he pressed the button to talk I could hear Daddy shouting and using some Very Rude Words. Uncle thought it was funny, though.

Here is what happened: When Uncle took me to the museum in his nice car, Daddy was supposed to pick me up from school. But I wasn’t there, because I was in the car. Daddy was very worried and cross, because Uncle is not supposed to steal me from school. Apparently he has stolen Papa a few times as well.

When Daddy got to the museum, he was really, really cross. The crossest I’ve ever seen him, definitely. His face was red like a tomato and he looked like he might try to beat Uncle up.

It’s normal for brothers to fight. I have twins in my class, Jez and Milo, and once they had a really nasty fight and had to be apart all day.

Daddy and Uncle didn’t fight like that, but Daddy put his hands over my ears while he talked to Uncle. Afterwards he said that he told Uncle if he ever tried to steal me again, he would cut him up into little pieces.

I said to Daddy that he shouldn’t kill Uncle, because he’s nice and I like him. Then I told Daddy about how I got into Uncle’s nice car and Daddy shouted at me, which was horrible.

I started crying, I hate being shouted at. Then Daddy got upset too, because he made me cry, and he wrapped me up inside his coat and said nice things until I stopped. He said he shouted because it’s dangerous for me to get into people’s cars who I don’t know. He and Papa have told me this lots of times. I felt a bit silly.

Papa was still at work when we got home. Daddy was still cross about Uncle kidnapping me so I made him a cup of tea. Except, I’m not allowed to touch the kettle so I made him it with cold water. It still worked though, because he drank it and kissed me and called me Honey Bee. He did make a funny face when he drank it, maybe next time I will use less teabags.

We didn’t tell Papa about the kidnapping. But I was very full from the cake I ate, so I didn’t want dinner. Daddy told Papa we ate before, but I didn’t see Daddy eat anything. I think he forgot.

That is the story of how I got kidnapped! The end.


	5. Bea- Speak From Your Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and I don't wanna listen  
> unless you speak from your heart

Today Daddy and Papa had a Very Big Fight. It was bad.

I was in my bedroom playing Ninja Deathmatch with Jack the Robot and June the Alien Puppy when I heard glass smash.

I went to see what had happened. Papa was standing in the bathroom and there were bits of mirror everywhere.

“Sorry about the noise, sweetheart.” He said. “I dropped the mirror. Don’t come in here, I’ll clean it up.”

I said “Okay.” But I knew that Papa was lying. I decided to investigate the roof.

Here is a thing you might not know about Daddy- he likes looking out over London. He says it calms him down when his brain is hurting him. Sometimes he goes up into the attic of our house, squeezes through the little window, and sits on the roof.

I climbed on a chair and a desk in the attic and slithered through the little window like a snake. Daddy was on the roof, as I suspected. He was sitting in a very small way and his eyes were red.

“Did you and Papa have a fight?” I asked him.

“You shouldn’t be up here.” He said, which was Avoiding The Question which meant Yes.

“You’re up here.” I pointed out.

“I shouldn’t be up here either, really. Please don’t tell John.”

When I asked why, Daddy said that Papa doesn’t like him to be on roofs, and then wouldn’t explain why. I don’t understand. What is so dangerous about a roof? Daddy is a super-genius, he doesn’t fall off things.

I decided to try a Different Line Of Questioning. I asked Daddy why he and Papa had a fight.

“I made him angry.” Daddy said, still looking out at the buildings and stuff. The sun was starting to go down.

“Were you mean to him?”

“I was just being honest.”

“Papa is a sensitive person. You should be more careful about what you say.” I suggested.

Then something really weird happened. Daddy looked at me, and he looked like he was about to start crying. Then he pulled me into his lap and held me really tight.

“Bea,” he said, “Please try to grow up more normal than I am.”

“I don’t want to be normal,” I said into his chest, “being normal is dull.”

“Dull people have friends, though. I wouldn’t want you to be lonely.”

“Why would I be lonely?” I asked.

“Because you’re clever, like me. People will be afraid of your mind.”

“I’m a lot less rude than you, though.” I said.

Daddy can be Very Rude, it’s one of his weaknesses.

He laughed. “So you are, Bea.”

“You should go and talk to Papa.” I told him.

Here is the thing about Daddy and Papa: They’re both boys. And according to Granny Hudson- who is very wise and old- boys are bad at talking about their feelings. For example, Daddy and Papa were flatmates for about a hundred years before either of them thought to say that they love eachother. So, sometimes they have fights and don’t know how to make up.

But I’m a girl, so I help them.

Usually when they make up, they’re all kissy and gross. But it means they love eachother again, so that’s good.

Daddy said he needed to sit on the roof for a bit longer before he could talk to Papa, so I left him there.

Papa is a very bad liar. He was picking up the bits of mirror in the bathroom when I came back in.

“You and Daddy should talk.” I told him.

“What do you mean, love?” he asked.

I sighed. Boys really are silly sometimes.

“I know you had a fight and that Daddy smashed the mirror because he was Being Dramatic.”

Papa looked at me like I had turned into a frog. Then he sighed one of his sighs.

(Daddy and I have “this is taking far too long and you’re being silly” sighs, but Papa has “Lord, give me strength” sighs.)

“He’s not on the roof, is he?” he asked after a very long time.

I didn’t want to lie. I changed the subject.

“Your hand is bleeding.” I said. “Glass can be very sharp, you should be careful.”

Papa sighed _again_ and said, “Yes, thank you, Bea. You’re right.”

He stopped playing with the mirror bits and went to talk to Daddy.

They must have sorted it out, because Daddy cleaned up Papa’s bleeding hand and put a bandage on it and then they were being all kissy in the kitchen and smiling at eachother for no reason.

I don’t know how I am going to start school in a few weeks if they need this much help. I am a busy girl and must concentrate on my studies.


	6. Texts, letters, Post-Its

(8.38 am) _  
I really am sorry about yesterday. –SH_

**It’s fine, you don’t have to keep apologising. –JW**

_The truth hurts, isn’t that what people say? –SH_

**I suppose your honesty is a good thing. I always know where I stand with you. –JW**

(10.21 am)   
**I still don’t like you going on the roof, though. –JW**

_The view is quite nice. –SH_

**I’m sure it is, just let me be irrational for once. It frightens me. –JW**

_You could join me some time. –SH_

(2.03 pm)  
 _I have a present for you. –SH_

 

 

**Dear Bea,**

**Have a wonderful first day at school. Eat all your lunch and we’ll be here at 3 to pick you up.**

**I love you and am so proud of you,**

**Papa xxx**

 

 

**You’re such a dick. –JW**

_You don’t like it? –SH_

**A sexy policeman calendar? Really? –JW**

_You laughed when you opened it, you know you did –SH_

**Yeah, I did. Lestrade’s face on March’s body was a nice touch –JW**

_It was retaliation for the ‘Hunks of the British Army’ calendar I received anonymously on my birthday. –SH_

**Which was retaliation for the sexy doctor’s outfit I found in my office. –JW**

_I forgot about that! I’m so funny. –SH_

**You really, really aren’t. –JW**

 

 

hi papa

hav a nice day at work

love you bee

 

 

_Buy orange juice and strawberry laces (the ‘fizzy’ kind) –SH_

**Pregnancy cravings? Ha ha –JW**

_I thought it would be only polite to ask Bea if she needed anything. –SH_

(3.44 pm)  
 _Any tips for getting glitter out of hair or clothes? –SH_

**Give up and accept it. –JW**

_I thought as much. Still, Bea has a very nice picture of a unicorn to show for it. –SH_

**Send me a picture? Of you I mean. –JW**

_[Picture attachment] –SH  
Bea says I look like ‘Tinkerbell’s boyfriend’? –SH_

**I thought Peter Pan was her boyfriend? You look mega cute and pouty. –JW**

_Asked Bea if Peter Pan is Tinkerbell’s boyfriend and received a very pitying look, apparently not. –SH  
Also I am neither cute nor pouty. –SH_

 

 

_Dear Bea,_

_As requested, here is your lunch for the day plus an encouraging note. Don’t swap the apple for chocolate._

_Go forth and be brilliant. Try not to intimidate the other children too much._

_When you get home, we can play scavenger hunt. I think you’ll like the new code I’ve made up._

_Obviously I also love you and am proud of_ _you._

_Daddy_

 

 

 

 

hi daddy

i found the 1st clue

and ate the chocolate monny

hav a nice time with the police

bee

 

 

 

_Dearest Bea,_

_I’m sorry you couldn’t come with me to the post-mortem. It’s a real shame, it was one of the most creative uses of varnish poisoning I’ve seen in a long time. However, John has made it very clear that if I bring you to an autopsy of any kind before you turn 12, then he will divorce me, and I can’t have that._

_Don’t worry, though. I’m going to bring home a cow’s heart for us to dissect tomorrow._

_I hope you haven’t been reading James and the Giant Peach without me, but I’ll still read it to you if you have._

_Love, Daddy_

 

 

**What the bloody fuck Sherlock –JW**

_I don’t know how to respond to that. –SH_

**The kitchen!?!? –JW**

_Ah, yes. A simple dissection of an animal heart, you said that those were fine. –SH_

**And it’s still there, next to the cornflakes, because…? –JW**

_The fridge was full. –SH_

**I’m going to kill you. –JW**

_[Picture attachment] –SH_

**Okay, I’m not going to kill you. –JW  
But you’re in for a smacked bottom when I get home. –JW**

_Can’t wait. -SH_

 

 

hi papa

i drew you a cow

here is his heart

he has a vena cava

moo

bee

 


	7. Sherlock- Hot Gossip

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh, if you object to Molly/Irene, you won't like this chapter.  
> Or maybe it'll make you reconsider. ;)

As usual, I was right about my hunch, and John is suitably awed.  
Molly is sleeping with The Woman aka Irene Adler.  
  
However in the style of John's blog, I must outline how I came to such a deduction- although skimping on his customary amount of dramatic prose and tedium.  
  
Possible title- The Adventure Of Sherlock Holmes Noticing Something Really Really Obvious?  
  
Anyway. My suspicions were first raised by Molly's cashmere jumper-dress monstrosity as previously noted. But! Then there was a second development.  
  
Molly and I were sitting in her living room having one of our somewhat traditional evenings of wine and cigarettes. Sobriety was still intact in this point in the evening, but it was definitely looking at its watch and putting on its coat. There had been a few incidences of giggling already on both our parts.  
  
I observed a red smear on Molly's tights, around the back of her left calf. It wasn't wine, wine doesn't smear, it soaks into fabrics. (I have researched this thoroughly, much to John's irritation.) At first I believed it to be blood, it was definitely the right shade and viscosity, and the area of leg where it appeared is a common spot for women to nick themselves during shaving.  
  
Then Molly shifted in her seat and the light hit her differently, allowing me a better view of the smudge.  
It wasn't blood- it was lipstick.  
  
It clearly wasn't Molly's, she has a light complexion and favours pale pink shades of make-up, she wouldn't wear blood red lipstick. And the back of her leg is a bizarre place to smudge it. The angle would be impossible if Molly was wearing the tights, and if she wasn't wearing them, it's unlikely they'd be anywhere near her face anyway.  
  
So, a woman who wears blood red lipstick whose mouth has visited the inside of Molly's legs.  
  
Suddenly I remembered something.

At one point during my period of Being Dead, I was discovered. I was living in a filthy shack a little ways outside of Beirut, trying to locate a terrorist cell that had links with Moriarty. I was in terrible shape as I recall- painfully underweight, sunburnt to hell and back, and I was missing the left half of my hair, exposing ugly, ragged stitches embedded in my scalp from a knife fight gone badly wrong.

I was practicing my written Arabic script when she slipped in. I say slipped in, I heard her coming about twenty seconds before she got inside due to the flimsy wooden ladder that led to my shack. I don’t recall how I knew it was her, I just knew it. I whipped out my pistol and levelled it at her forehead, my hand trembling with rage and fear.

“Hamish,” she purred, voice oozing mockery, “That’s not a very nice welcome.”

I demanded to know how she’d found me. I was scared witless. If she had found me, then I was not truly dead. If The Woman could find me, others could find me. Word would get out that I was alive, and the people I wanted to protect would be killed. Especially John. If he were to become even slightly suspicious of my death, he would be sure to come looking for me. And then he would die.

“I didn’t think you were really dead.” The Woman said. “I fake it all the time, I know the signs.”

I asked again how she’d found me.

“A little mouse told me.” She said, and smiled coquettishly.

I found that turn of phrase odd, but I thought nothing of it, my mind was elsewhere.

Then she made some comments about John and I that I really didn’t appreciate. My taking his name as an alias. His grieving.

I pressed the nose of my gun to her forehead and told her in no uncertain terms to leave me alone and to tell no-one that she had found me.

“You wouldn’t kill me, sweetheart. You saved my life once.”

I assured her that I absolutely would kill her if I felt the need. I was already a fugitive, and The Woman has no shortage of enemies. It would be very easy to cover up, especially with a false identity.

She cooed and feigned disappointment. “You’re very hostile, Hamish. I much preferred Sherlock, can’t you bring him back?”

I was so enraged by this point I could only speak in monosyllables. “He’s dead. Get out.” I nudged her with the gun again for extra emphasis.

She left, and I thought no more about it, aside from a few niggling worries. I assumed that her little bird or mouse or whatever was intelligence from one of her many clients. She does have some very high-up people in some very tight bonds- ha ha ha.

But, back to Molly. Molly who helped me fake my death, Molly who put a corpse in the ground with my name on it.

Molly does not do well under duress. She is incredibly malleable and flexible with shockingly minimal motivation. I for example have convinced her to do some wildly illegal things with a few well-placed smiles and compliments. She is like a marshmallow, sweet and easily squashed.

It would not have been difficult for The Woman to extract my whereabouts from her. Not difficult in the slightest.

Upon realising this, my mind decided to conjure a vast and lurid variety of scenarios in which The Woman interrogated Molly. A morgue table would serve well as a place to restrain a person, if one had the right equipment, which The Woman most assuredly does. Molly’s tights were likely not the only placed that got a good lipstick-smudging. I choked on my wine.

(John laughed himself silly when I told him this part of my thought process.

“You utter pervert.” he’d said, wiping a tear of mirth from the corner of his eye. “If you ever get bored of being a detective, you should branch out into writing erotic lesbian fiction.”

“Very well,” I agreed, “I shall make the protagonist of my first book your sister.”

John put me in a headlock and started pinching my arse. He is the pervert around here, not me.)

When I confronted Molly about her torrid affair with my nemesis, she went bright pink and squirmed in a way that positively screamed guilt. She made the pretence of denying it for a few minutes, but I was unmoved.

I pointed out that her most recent romantic interests have been myself, Moriarty, and now The Woman. She seems to have the same danger-lust that John suffers from. Perhaps there is a support group that they could both go to.

Now, I realise that my reputation is somewhat leaning towards Complete and Utter Bastard, but I care deeply about Molly. Now that I’ve promoted John from best friend to husband, there is a vacancy that would be comfortably filled by a mousy girl in cat jumpers. She is kind and loyal and puts up with me in a way that borders on saintly. She helped me when I had nowhere to turn, when not even John could help me.

I did not like the idea of The Woman treating Molly badly. The Woman is selfish, attention-seeking and not above manipulation and cruelty to get what she wants. In all of those ways, we are rather alike. Except I don’t parade around naked to try and intimidate my foes.

(“Your penis isn’t very intimidating.” John added at this point.

I reminded John that if our roles were reversed, and if it was I who was attempting to intimidate The Woman with my nudity, I would have been pepper sprayed and labelled as a sex offender for the rest of my days.

But since she did it to me, apparently I just have to deal with it. That’s feminism for you.

John called me a misogynist when I said that, and said that it was an unfit attitude for a person raising a young girl. However I reminded him that I hate men just as much, and that I am a misanthrope, a despiser of all peoples, regardless of their sex.

“Oh, yes.” he conceded, “How could I forget.”)

I tried to communicate my concerns to Molly, but I don’t think she understood me clearly, because she went all gooey and gave me a hug.

“It’s sweet of you to worry about me, but I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself. She’s actually really good to me.”

I made a dismissive huffing sound and put my arm around her so that I could have a drag on my cigarette over her shoulder.

“If she’s not, I shall set John on her.”

Molly pulled back from hugging me and gave me a wobbly smile and put a hand on my cheek.

“Thank you. You really are a good person sometimes, you know?”

I scowled at her. “Don’t tell anyone.”

She laughed and got off me, and we both had another glass of wine. I’m a bit fuzzy on what happened after that, but I distinctly remember us swapping notes on what methods of restraint are enjoyable in bed, and that she laughed so hard she fell off the sofa when I told her about how I once spanked John with the TV remote.

John was wide-eyed and disbelieving when I told him all of this.

Then he asked, “What do you think they… y’know… do? Like, in bed.”

I was surprised at John. For a person who watches such a large and varied amount of pornography, he was showing a terrible lack of imagination.

“Yeah, but those girls on the internet aren’t really lesbians, and how people have sex in porn isn’t how real people shag eachother, it’s all fake.”

I conceded that he was probably right about that. The way John and I engage in sex would look bizarre and unappealing to a third party.

Still, the fact that he couldn’t fathom Molly and The Woman’s bedroom activities surprised me. In the first few months of our relationship, John had all these ridiculous notions about preserving my virginity which basically boiled down to: no penetrative intercourse. Everything else was fair game, apart from that. It was nonsensical.

(I personally feel that I lost my virginity in several stages. First, John and I mounted eachother fully clothed to orgasm directly after our first kiss. Then a few days later I wanked him off. A few days after that, he gave me my first blowjob. A week later, I pounced on him in the shower and we had wonderful shower gel slippery frottage. By the time I actually buggered him, there was nothing virginal about me, not a shred of purity left. One can’t really consider oneself still a virgin when you’ve had someone rub off in the cleft of your buttocks and then ejaculate on your face. It’s ridiculous.)  

For a person who was completely asexual up until the age of thirty, I feel it’s alarming that I should have to explain these sorts of things to John, who has shagged a frankly enormous percentage of the earth’s female population. I began listing sexual activities that two women could engage in, and I had only just reached the part about strap-on dildos when he stopped me.

“Yes, alright, I get it.” He was quite red in the cheeks, and the tips of his ears.

We both vowed to keep a close eye on this budding Sapphic love. I will not allow anyone to be cruel to Molly (“Except you,” yes, thank you, John) and John is just looking for any excuse to have a go at The Woman. She provokes an aggressively jealous side of him that I rather like.

The pair of us sometimes wonder how we, two males, are supposed to raise Bea with no female role model in her life. I decided to end the speculation and asked Bea directly how she felt about it.

“Why do I need a role model? I don’t want to be a model, I want to be a superhero.” she said.

I explained to her what a role model was, and she seemed mildly offended.

“I don’t want to copy some lady. I’m me!”  

I always used to believe it was consummate rot how parents are always irrationally proud of everything their offspring say or do- and I still do, to some extent, because no child I have ever witnessed is like Bea – but Bea makes me ever so proud. She’ll want for nothing in life, she’ll gouge and steamroller her rivals. As a grown woman, she will be a terrifying force of nature.

It’s hardly surprising, she is half John.

(“Which is lucky, she needs something strong to balance out her you-half.”)


	8. John- Sudafed Blues

John pokes his head around the door of Bea’s bedroom, where she is sitting up in bed, coughing into a wad of tissues.

“How are you feeling?” he asks gently.

Bea shrugs and wipes her nose. “My throat hurts.”

John checks his watch. “Can’t give you any more cough syrup for another hour or two, how about an ice lolly?”

She nods. “Yes please.”

From the next room, there is a groan. “Jooooohn.”

He sighs, and presses his lips together.

“Joooohn. Tea.”

Bea giggles at John’s exasperated expression.

“I’ll be right back with your ice lolly.” he says, forcing calmness into his tone. Then he marches into the living room, where Sherlock is posed recumbent on the sofa, reminding John irresistibly of a Victiorian aristocrat dying of consumption.

“I’ve been shouting for ages.” Sherlock complains hoarsely. “I need tea.”

John exhales and can almost feel smoke curling out of his nostrils.

Sherlock seems to notice John’s stormy expression and coughs pitifully, widening his eyes.

“If it’s not too much trouble.” he adds.

“You are _always_ too much trouble, Sherlock. Right now, you are being out-behaved by a five year old.” John fumes.

“That pattern’s very flattering on you,” Sherlock tries. “Really accentuates your biceps. I’d like chai or lapsang souchong if we have any. Assam will do.”

John’s eyes bore into the sofa so hard he almost expects the nest of snotty tissues Sherlock is lying in to burst into flames.

“Did Bea say something about ice lollies?”

 

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A factor of having a school-aged child that John was well-prepared for, is that they more or less become a bucket of germs once they start mixing with other children. Of course, this is all natural and good for their immune system, and they usually get over it fairly quickly.

A few days ago, one of Bea’s teachers had called, saying that she was coughing and sneezing and generally looking a bit peaky. John was at work, so Sherlock had gone to the school to pick her up, and quite rightly, brought her to the surgery. After taking Bea’s temperature and having a quick listen to her chest, John wrote a prescription for some antibiotics and told Sherlock to take her home and put her to bed.

This was all fine for a day or two, due to the surprising fact that Sherlock is a wonderful stay-at-home dad, and actually seems to quite enjoy it. Given his ‘not leaving the house for anything less than serial murder’ mentality, it makes an odd kind of sense.

(John will never, ever stop finding it endearing that Sherlock, who is outwardly so callous and generally awful towards most people, has such a soft spot for caring for a little girl. He has seemingly infinite patience with her, and seems to relish answering every question she throws at him.

On one occasion, John observed Sherlock helping Bea with her homework. It had taken her almost fifteen minutes to solve a simple subtraction exercise, but every time she got it wrong, Sherlock would simply say, “I don’t think that’s right” or “Shall we try that one again?” until she got it.

Later that evening, John had said, “I don’t get it. You verbally eviscerate trained police officers for failing to notice the colour of a person’s shoelaces, but Bea not quite understanding that six minus three is three is somehow totally understandable.”

Sherlock had given him a bizarre look, and then said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, “They’re _trained police officers_ , John. Bea is a child. She doesn’t know anything yet, whereas there’s no excuse for incompetence in adults.”)

However. Later in the week, when John had the day off, Sherlock had been called in by Lestrade to come and look at some thing or another, so they swapped duties.

John had just finished feeding Bea some soup, which she’d obligingly wolfed down, seemingly on the mend already, when he’d received a phonecall from a weary-sounding Lestrade.

“John, please come and pick up your husband.”

“If he’s being a nuisance, send him home in a police car.” he’d suggested, trapping the phone between his ear and shoulder to make a start on doing the washing up.

“As much as I’d like to, I’m afraid he’s sort of passed out on the floor of my office.”

“Is he alright? What happened?”

“Well…” Lestrade said, and John could almost see him prodding Sherlock with the end of his shoe, “he’s all pale and sweaty and making this wheezy coughing sound. He seemed fine one minute and then he was just on the floor, out cold. Hang on, I’ll just… yeah, he’s burning up. Isn’t your little girl off school?”

“Yeah, he’s been looking after her the last few days. I’ll be there as soon as I can, try and get some liquids into him, okay?”

“Will do.”

After begging Mrs Hudson to keep an eye on Bea while he went to Scotland Yard, John urgently got a cab and upon arriving, was treated to the sight of Sherlock slumped in a chair, swathed in blankets with some young intern trying to feed him a mug of Lemsip.

“John!” he said. “Thank goodness you’re here. These idiots won’t stop fussing over—“ and then started coughing up something audibly liquid.

John winced. “It sounds like you have a chest infection, Sherlock. Come on, let’s get you home. I’ll get you some antibiotics later, but for now I’ll give you something to take your temperature down a bit.”

“No!” Sherlock protested, voice slurred. “I’m fine. Transport. It’s all… illness is psychological. I’m fine.”

“Transport?” John repeated. “Tell me, if you’re driving down the motorway and black smoke starts pluming out from under the bonnet of your car, would you pull over and take a look inside?”

“You aren’t looking inside me!” came the indignant reply. “And you, get off me, I don’t want any of this crap.” Sherlock feebly shoved at the young man trying to get him to drink cold medicine. “Stick it in a beaker, find an open flame, and cook yourself some meth-amphetamine.”

“Oookay. I am taking you home.” John said and dragged Sherlock to his feet. “You dick, you can’t just get the sniffles like a normal person, can you? You have to be a drama queen and almost die on Lestrade’s floor.”

John tucked a limp arm around his shoulders, and helped Sherlock wobble out towards the exit. The heat coming off him was enough to melt a block of butter.

“Just a minute. I’ve misplaced my croutons. Tell the horses to wait.”

“Don’t worry about that. You’ll be tucked up in bed in no time at all.”

 

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Deciding to keep the infection to one area, John nudged open the door to Bea’s bedroom and dumped Sherlock’s unconscious body on the free side of the bed.

Bea woke up from her light doze and frowned. “Daddy’s ill too?”

“Yep. Shockingly, a person who has to be reminded to eat and sleep and plays with mould cultures doesn’t have the best immune system.” John muttered, unlacing Sherlock’s shoes and pulling them off, along with his socks.

“Oh dear,” Mrs Hudson said sympathetically, offering John a glass of water and some paracetamol. “He works himself too hard, silly boy.”

After force-feeding Sherlock the pills, tugging off the rest of his clothes and shoving him into his pyjamas, John left him to sleep. Bea looked concerned.

“Is Daddy going to be alright?” she whispered.

“He’ll be fine. He just needs to rest.”

“Okay,” she nodded, “I’ll give him lots of hugs.”

“Good girl.” John smiled. “You concentrate on getting better, too.”

Bea ran a hand over the sweaty, granulating flesh of Sherlock’s forearm. He made a soft sound in his sleep and pulled her close, tucking her into his chest, under his chin, like a teddybear.

John’s phone dinged.

_In about four hours, he will start asking for sparkling lemonade and crisp sandwiches (salt and vinegar, brown wholemeal, lots of butter). It’s best not to argue.  –Mycroft_

“How sweet.” he said to no-one.

 

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Once Sherlock’s fever is under control and he has eaten some food -he looked ready to weep with gratitude when John brought in the crisp sandwiches and lemonade and called John “Fantastic, amazing John, love of my life”- he is back to his usual, irritating self. He has taken up residence on the sofa and is alternating between coughs that sound like a walrus barking, and whining for John to bring him things.

In the afternoon, Sherlock’s self-pitying, griping and general fuss-making wakes Bea up, and she comes into the living room, blanket trailing behind her.

Sherlock reaches out to her. “Sweet Bea, my darling girl. I’ve not long left in this mortal existence. Come and speak to your father on his deathbed.”

John is about to shout from the kitchen that it’s bad form to tell a child you are dying if you aren’t, but Bea seems unimpressed.

“Daddy, you’re not dying. You’ve just got a cough.”

He pouts and throws an arm over his face dramatically. “You’re heartless, like John. You’ll both be sorry when I’m dead.”

Bea puts her hands on her hips. “Stop being a baby.”

There is silence apart from the rustling of blankets, and then Sherlock’s outraged spluttering.

“Eww, your nose is all slimy.”

“Then don’t put your fingers up my nose!”

John comes into the living room with tea and toast to see Bea wiping her hands clean on Sherlock’s tshirt, perched precariously on his stomach.

“Children, please.” he says, putting the plate and cup down on the coffee table.


	9. Bea and Mycroft- Memories of Maisy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mentions of drug use, rehab and general sad things?

Today Daddy and I had a special mission while Papa was at work, which was to go to the end of the street to the post-box to post a letter.

I don’t know why Daddy said it was a special mission, posting a letter is really not very hard. It’s not like we were going spying or something. But something interesting happened on our way to the post-box.

I was walking with Daddy and holding his hand so he doesn’t wander off, when a woman saw us and shouted to Daddy. He knew her!

She was about the same age as him and was dressed up nice, but not dressy. Like a teacher or something nice. She was pretty and blonde. She hugged Daddy and she looked so pleased to see him.

“Maisy.” he said. “You’re doing well.”

Maisy did this funny laugh and went a bit pink. “Ugh, don’t do that thing.”

“Oh, come on,” Daddy said, “you’re married, working as a counsellor, you’ve been clean for nearly three years. How nice.”

“Yeah, yeah… What about you? You look fantastic.”

Daddy looked like he wasn’t really sure what to say, which is funny, because he always has something to say. He looked around like he was lost, and then held up my arm.

“I have a child!” he said suddenly, showing me to Maisy. “And, and I live in London and I’m married and a detective still. So. It’s good.” His voice sounded funny.

“Oh, that’s lovely, Sherlock, I’m so pleased for you. Anyway-“

“Yes, you’re late for work, even later now that you’ve seen me.”

“Right. Bye!” she said, smiled at us both, and dashed off.

We kept on walking, but something seemed weird.

“Who’s she?” I asked as we posted the letter.

“A woman.” Daddy said.

“How do you know her?”

“I met her.”

“Daddy!”

“Okay, alright.”

He stopped walking then, and kind of looked far away. He looked how Papa looks when people mention the war he was in. Like thinking about it hurts inside.

“I had a bit of a problem.” Daddy said after a while. “I was sort of ill and I had to go to a place to get better, for a few months. Maisy was there getting better too.”

“Oh. You mean like Auntie Harry?”

“Yes, a bit like her.”

Auntie Harry is Papa’s sister. She was in hospital for a bit because she got drunk too much, but she is better now. I’m not allowed to meet her just yet.

I couldn’t really picture Daddy being drunk and acting silly.

“Did you drink too much?” I asked him.

“No, I…” he frowned, “I started taking drugs and I couldn’t stop.”

“Oh!” I said. “Like my mum?”

“Yes.”

That made me really sad. Daddy looked sad, too. I thought about him dying like my mum died.

My mum needed to take a lot of drugs otherwise she got really ill and cried a lot. She had to give herself injections and everything. It was really scary.

“Why did Papa let you take drugs?”

“I didn’t know him then.”

“Didn’t anyone help you?”

“My brother made me go to the clinic to get better.”

“Because he loves you.” I said, nodding.

“That’s not why he sent me there. Our family has a reputation to uphold.” Daddy replied, and he sounded really angry.

I hugged his leg then. I couldn’t stop thinking about my mum and her injections and her dying and Daddy being ill like she was and him dying and leaving me and Papa by ourselves. It was scary and I started crying.

He picked me up. “What’s wrong, Bea? I’m alright now.”

“Please don’t die…” I said. “Don’t take drugs and get ill. You’re not allowed.”

Daddy’s forehead did a creasing thing like Papa’s sometimes does. “I won’t. I’ve been better for nearly five years. It’s alright, Bea. I’m not going to die.”

I wiped my eyes on his coat and he kissed me. “Good.” I said.

He carried me the rest of the way home.

“Was Maisy your girlfriend?” I asked.

Daddy laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous!”

“Why? She’s pretty.”

“We should introduce her to your aunt.”

“What? Why?”

“They could be friends.”

“Is Auntie Harry pretty too?”

“Even prettier than John.”

“Oh, wow.”

 

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_He was quiet and sullen in the car journey, eyes barely flicking up from his lap to see where were going, but I assume he knew. Only once the car stopped did he start to look rattled, still outwardly calm but flickers of panic danced in his eyes. Perhaps he thought I had been bluffing or making empty threats._

_He went inside willingly and sat himself down in a small, clean room that had been prepared for him after I called. I put down the duffel bag of clean clothes I'd brought for him, and made to leave. I wished him good luck and assured him I'd be in touch soon, and a friendly-looking nurse came in as I left._

_I closed the door after her and walked precisely three paces before I heard him speak._

_"Mycroft."_

_I paused, but I didn't turn around. I waited._

_"Mycroft, come back, now, please." He'd obviously meant this as a command but it sounded more like a question._

_I said nothing, but I did not move either._

_There was five seconds of nothing, and then he was banging on the small window of the door to his room. Pounding the palms of his hands against the glass and screaming my name. He sounded terrified._

_"Mycroft!! Mycroft!! Let me out of here!! Mycroft!!"_

_It took every ounce of self-control I had to not turn around, in that moment. I wanted so dearly to go back into that room and demand my brother back. But it would not help him, and even if I had the power to tell the orderlies and administrators of the clinic what to do, I did not have that same power over heroin or cocaine. They would not give me my brother back until he wrenched himself free._

_On the other side of the door, Sherlock had got tired of shouting and bellowing and had started to cry instead._

_"Mycroft. Mycroft please. I want to go home."_

_My mind filled with images of him at every age he had ever been in his life. A screaming infant, then a child with singed fingers from his first bunsen burner. And now a man, an adult, sobbing and gasping my name, pleading._

_I still could not turn around. I did not want to see._

_He soon tired of crying and went back to screaming._

_"Mycro-- ungh..." There was the soft thunk of a forehead against glass, and then a low thud of a body hitting the floor. The nurse had sedated him._

_Only then would my feet work once more. I quickly left the clinic, my jaw firmly set._

_Sherlock wrote to me many times during his stay in the clinic, but there was an undertone of obligation in the first few letters. It seemed likely that him writing to me and talking about his progress were somehow part of his treatment._

_I replied to none of them, and the letters soon turned angry, anger thinly covering hurt._

_After a while of non-compliance, he stopped writing to me all together. But I still kept each letter._


	10. Sherlock- Wild Thing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you enjoy my nonsensical ramblings, you might like to [follow me on Tumblr](http://strippers-and-coke.tumblr.com).

Normally the expression “I didn’t sign up for this” is John’s exasperated mating call and not mine, but I really did not sign up for this.

When I solved the case of Bea’s mother’s murder/accidental death/infanticide – John has neglected to give it one of his customary ridiculous names – and adopted Bea to be my daughter, I realised it would not be an easy ride. I had fully resigned myself to dealing with Bea’s emotional trauma, rebuilding her trust in adults, ensuring she was healthy and well, and had even made peace with the fact that sooner or later she would hit puberty and I would be entrusted with a sulky teenaged girl with only John to help me. I didn’t mind at all, every challenge parenthood has thrown at me so far I’ve risen to with my usual amount of dazzling ingenuity.

Apart from two things.

1)      Other people’s children.

2)      Other children’s parents.

I was at a construction site in Hackney with Lestrade fluttering around me like a grim-faced hummingbird, examining the corpse of a twenty year old male. He had a gun in his hand but it had clearly been planted, and the gunshot above his right ear was not by any means self-administered. His clothes were cheap and hadn’t been cleaned in at least a week, he seemed an unlikely candidate for a cover-up, and he obviously didn’t have the means to purchase a brand new handgun that was barely out of its casing just to kill himself with. Naturally, I was giddy with excitement.

My phone started to ring, and I answered it, expecting John. He knew I was attending with the police today and he would be anxious to know how it was going, he had been reluctant to leave me to go to work. Alas, it was not John on the phone.

“Mr Holmes?”

It was a teacher from Bea’s school. Apparently she had been in an altercation with another student and there had been a fight.

“Is Bea hurt?” I asked.

“No, she’s alright. The boy, Tim, has a bit of a bruise though.”

“Well, you’ve made a crucial error, you see what you need to do is call Tim’s parents, not me. I don’t have a bruised child.”

“Yes, but we’re concerned about Bea’s behaviour.”

The teacher- newly-qualified, trying to throw his weight around – droned on for about a century while Lestrade gave me a sympathetic look. Since we’re both fathers now he keeps trying to bond with me about fatherly things and I don’t care for it.

“Look,” I told the man using my most patient tones, “I’m sure to you it seems extremely alarming that a five year old child can’t settle a dispute with a well-reasoned argument and might resort to hitting or shoving, but I feel it’s important to remember that they are, in fact, children. Bea is not normally violent, he probably needed a bit of a slap.”

He spluttered in outrage and went off again, calling me ‘Mr Holmes’ so many times I gave myself a headache from rolling my eyes at the sky.

“Tim’s parents would like to speak to you, we need you to come down to the school.”

“I’m actually at work right now, but don’t worry, I’ll put my best man onto it.” I said.

“Your husband is already here.” He replied, and I could not contain a groan of exasperation.

Who the hell were these people that they felt they had to summon _both_ of us? I took an instant dislike to them, and could all too easily see how they might be the sort of idiots who would raise the sort of idiotic child that Bea felt needed a smack in the face. She may be little but I trust her judgement.

I managed to get Mr New Teacher off the phone with promises of speaking to John. I also apologised to Lestrade, who was sickeningly understanding about it.

“One of my lads used to get into scraps all the time.”

“And now I’ve got to go and face the little cretin’s parents.”

“Ugh, I don’t envy you. We’ll take it from here, call me when you’re done.”

 

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I knew I was right to not like Tim’s parents. As soon as I stepped into the head teacher’s office I was practically hit in the face with the dour atmosphere of their marriage, how Tim’s father had erectile dysfunction and his mother was facing redundancy. Tim himself was hiding behind his mother’s chubby legs and grizzling pathetically. He was clearly spoilt and often got his way so his parents could ignore him in peace. I saw no visible bruises and it had been almost 45 minutes since the actual fight took place, how could this awful child _still_ be crying?

I turned to look with pride at my own family. John was sitting straight-backed in a chair looking sternly at me, as if trying to pre-censor anything I might say, and Bea was standing beside him, looking defiant.

Then, Tim’s mother opened her mouth and all sorts of noise came out about how Bea is wild and uncontrolled and shouldn’t be allowed near other children, especially not sensitive souls like her little angel Tim. I thought I might actually vomit.

Thankfully, John intervened in a careful and diplomatic manner, being vague and pointing no fingers. That seemed to placate the woman’s nattering, until he turned to me and said, “Isn’t that right, Sherlock?”

I scoffed. “Hardly. Look at the pair of them, is it any wonder their son is—ow!”

John took his foot off mine and gave me a blood-curdling smile. I am somewhat ashamed to admit it, but John can be quite intimidating when he tries, and he knows where I sleep and all of my fears and where I’m most ticklish.

I put on my best smile and said to the family of pondlife opposite us, “I’m sure it was just a misunderstanding, like John said. We’ll have a little chat with Bea so that it doesn’t happen again, please accept our humblest apologies.”

Would you believe, it still wasn’t enough. Tim’s father decided to speak up.

“I find that hard to believe. It seems to me Bea’s having these… outbursts because she’s in such an unsteady home.”

“Outbursts?” the head teacher asked. “Has this happened more than once?”

Tim shook his head meekly.

“But she’s probably hit other children.” His wife chimed in.

One of the hallmarks of a good partnership, friendship or marriage is that sometimes one can communicate without words. I raised my eyebrows at John as if to ask “ _May I?”_ and he gave a micro-nod that said “ _Go ahead.”_

I turned in my seat to address them face-on, and got stuck in.

“Bea has not hit any other children. Perhaps she was trying to give your son the discipline he clearly isn’t getting from you, why else would he be snivelling behind your skirt and overweight? The prospect of being unemployed is stressful, yes, but I don’t think ignoring your only child- oh, and online gambling- is any solution. As for you,” I gestured at her husband, “If you desperately need to boost your ego that badly, get a stronger prescription of those little blue pills, because implying that John and I are not raising Bea properly or that she is unhappy will not make you any more of a man. Instead, I suggest that you attempt some semblance of parenting and help reinforce this lesson that if your brat of a son walks around like a prince patrolling his manor, he’s going to face animosity from his peers.”

Every person in the room gaped at me open-mouthed, apart from John, who looked an equal measure of impressed and aroused. I bent down and scooped Bea up in my arms.

“Bea, don’t hit people. Okay?” I said to her.

She nodded. “Okay. I won’t.”

“Great. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a corpse to look at.”

John stood up and nodded politely to the head teacher, and we left.

 

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“Why did you hit Tim?” John asked Bea as she was tucking into a frankly disgusting looking stack of syrupy pancakes.

“He’s _gross_ ,” she whined. “He got all close to me trying to take my ball and he smells.”

“Fair enough.” John said with a shrug. “Who’s nice at your school? Who do you like?”

“Nita and Jez and Milo! They’re cool. We’re gonna start a band.”  Bea enthused.

I laughed into my coffee mug and John scowled at me. I once went to pick Bea up from playing at Jez and Milo’s house and their mother had flirted with me so voraciously John nearly popped a vein. It didn’t seem to matter that I wasn’t remotely interested in her dyed blonde hair or liposuctioned thighs, he was _furious_ and I had to walk around for three days with a jealousy-motivated lovebite like a teenager.

I told Bea, “When you’re bigger, I’ll teach you self-defence properly.”

Her eyes sparkled. “So I can fight like a ninja?”

“Baritsu does have elements of both judo and ninjutsu in it, yes.”

“Can I have a sword?”

I was about to say “Maybe when you’re older”, but John shook his head. 


	11. Bea- Baby You Can Drive My Car

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I've been quiet! My new job is pretty wild.

We are going on holiday!

Daddy never talks about his family, but I found out they are super rich. He says he inherited a house in Sussex, which is in the countryside. I’ve never been outside of London before, but apparently once you leave, everywhere is all green and leafy and pretty and there are cows and sheep and horses and stuff just loose, like a big farm.

“Is it a big house like on Downton Abbey?” I asked Daddy while he read the newspaper. “Are there servants and stuff?”

“It’s quite a large house, yes. Approximately six acres overall, there were staff, but I had them let go seeing as I won’t be living there.”

“Did you grow up there?”

“No, Mycroft got our childhood home.”

I didn’t even know people could have more than one house. When Mum was alive we lived in one room. I peered at Daddy, wondering if he might secretly be a prince or something. He acts like one.

“Well, now that it’s the summer holiday and Bea’s off school, we should take a trip down there!” Papa said through a mouthful of toast. “Long way though. Can you even get to the grounds without a car?”

“I can arrange a car.” Daddy said.

“Oh, a rental? That’s not a bad idea.”

Papa finished his tea and toast and had to go to work. We kissed him goodbye, and when he was gone, Daddy put down his newspaper and looked at me with a little smile.

“Bea, how do you fancy another secret mission?”

“I don’t want to go and post more letters.”

“No, no, a proper one. With disguises and false names, like spies.”

“We’re going spying?”

“No, we’re going to cash in a favour.”

I agreed, and Daddy helped me pick out a nice dress and combed my hair for me so I looked smart.

Then he went to go change, and instead of wearing something nice too, he came out of his bedroom wearing an old tshirt with a pair of sunglasses hanging off the neck, yoga pants and flip flops. He didn’t even comb his hair.

“Daddy!” I said, putting my hands on my hips like Papa does when Daddy is being silly, “You can’t wear that, this is business!”

“It’s my disguise.”

Daddy explained that to get the favour, he has to pretend to be a person called Hamish Carpenter. Hamish isn’t rich, doesn’t dress nice and he doesn’t have any children, which is where my secret identity comes in. I spent a really long time on it, I think it’s pretty good.

My alter ego is Beatrice Hive. She lives in a castle, with a stable. She has five horses and two dogs and plays the guitar, and can read all of the books in the library. Her parents are amazing lawyers who stop the rainforest being cut down and they let her watch whatever she likes on TV, because she’s so mature and clever.

(Papa won’t let me watch Game of Thrones because there’s so much killing and naked people and naughty words, but he did get me a plushy dragon so I can be a Khaleesi.)

Oh! And Beatrice Hive has a scruffy uncle named Hamish. He travels around from place to place, playing the violin. He doesn’t have much money, but he really loves his niece and wants to impress her as much as he can.

Anyway, we got in a cab and went to a really posh looking car place, it had the kind of cars that James Bond would drive. When we got out of the taxi, Daddy reminded me not to call him Daddy but Uncle Hamish, and to make sure I kept my story straight and not get confused, otherwise the man we were there to see would know we were lying and we wouldn’t get our favour.

As soon as Daddy saw him, he turned into a whole other person. It was amazing. He was all smiley and friendly and relaxed-looking, and he hugged the man in the car place’s office. Even his voice sounded different, and he didn’t stand up as straight as he does usually. Daddy is the best actor I’ve ever seen.

“Hamish, my man!” The car salesman said, smacking him on the back the way men do when they hug. He had an American voice, and he was a bit older than Daddy.

“Hey, Jason!” Daddy laughed, “Great to see you, it’s been ages!”

They chatted for a bit and did some ‘catching up’, Daddy asked about Jason’s wife and even made a couple of jokes.

I think if Hamish were a real person, Daddy would hate him. He doesn’t like people being too friendly and he says there are only about four people in the universe who are allowed to hug him without asking first.

(He didn’t say who, but I reckon it’s me, Papa, Granny Hudson and Molly. I think if Daddy could have chosen his own family instead of the people he was born with, he would have picked Granny Hudson as his mum and Molly as his little sister.)

After a bit, Jason asked Daddy, “And who’s this little lady?”

“Oh!” Daddy said, and laughed in a sort of ‘ _silly me, aren’t I forgetful’_ sort of way. “This is my niece, Bea, I’ve got her for the day. Bea, this is a friend of mine, Jason.”

“Hello.” I said, making my voice a bit posher. “These are nice cars.”

Jason grinned at me, I could see all of his teeth. One of them was gold. “You’ve got a keen eye, miss. I’ve been telling your uncle here that he needs to get himself a vehicle, but he’s awfully keen on that environmental bicycle stuff.”

I wish I had been there when Daddy had pretended to be a person who cares about the environment, I bet it was funny.

“So you think one of these cars would be good for Uncle Hamish?” I asked.

“Oh, goodness, no.” Daddy interrupted. “I can’t afford anything as nice as this.”

“Nonsense! Buddy, I’ve got the perfect ride for you. It’s the least I can do for a guy who helped me out so much.” Jason insisted, and dragged Daddy over to one of the nicest cars there. It was shiny and blue-grey.

We got into the car, and Jason told Daddy a lot of car things that I didn’t understand. I liked the soft, shiny seats, though. It definitely looked like the sort of car that would have secret buttons for turbo-boosters and ejector seats.

“I really can’t accept this, Jason.” Daddy was saying, even though it was going exactly the way he planned.

Jason looked back over the seats at me and asked, “Whaddya say, kiddo? Think this is a classy enough car for a guy as stylish as your Uncle H?”

“I think you and I have different ideas of stylish, Mr. Jason.” I said. “But you might have some luck with this car.”

Daddy laughed again. “Kids, right?”

After a bit, they signed some papers, and we got our car. For free.

“Why did he give it to you?” I asked Daddy as we were driving away and he wasn’t doing his Hamish face any more.

“He owed me a favour. When I was in the States, Jason’s wife went missing. I helped bring her back.”

“Did Papa help?”

“No, he wasn’t around.”

“Did you meet Jason when you were dead?”

He stared at me and frowned. I wondered if I had said something bad, because Daddy should really have been looking at the road. I would have looked for him, but the seats were too low and I couldn’t see out of the window.

“Yes.” He said after a bit.

 

 

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I thought Papa would really like our new car, but he didn’t. He shouted at Daddy and I had to go downstairs to play with Granny Hudson for a while. She kept patting me on the head and saying, “They’ll soon sort themselves out, silly boys,” and feeding me biscuits.

I could still hear them through the ceiling, though. Apparently Daddy was supposed to borrow a car, not buy one – but, as Daddy kept shouting, he didn’t actually buy it or pay any money for it – and it was supposed to be a ‘low-key’ car.

I thought the car just had normal keys.

After a really long time Papa came downstairs. I was having a sleep on the sofa.

He knelt down by me and said really softly, “Sorry about that, love.”

I looked up at him and rubbed my face. “It’s okay. I know you don’t like to remember Daddy being dead and being Hamish. But he used up his favour so we can have a car and go on holiday.”

Then Papa stared at me too. It’s rude to stare if you ask me, but I let Daddy off because being rude is his second-favourite hobby after solving crimes. He’s an Insulting Detective, he says. But for Papa there is no excuse.

“You’re frighteningly clever, Bea.” Papa said.

“Yes.” I nodded. “Did you and Daddy kiss and make up yet?”

Papa dabbed at his mouth with his sleeve- but he did it without noticing, which is a Tell, a thing guilty people do.

“Ewww.” I said.

Papa is a doctor, doesn’t he know how many germs are in a person’s mouth?

We are driving down  to Daddy’s house in the country next week. I can’t wait!


	12. John- House In The Country

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He lives in a house,  
> A very big house in the country  
> -Blur, 'Country House'

In the grounds of the Holmes’ Sussex manor, John has found paradise. Turns out, paradise was hiding on a marble bench, in a spot of June sunshine, and an ice-cold pitcher of Pimms- chock full of strawberries, cucumber wedges and elderflowers from the manor’s generously over-stuffed pantry. His first truly restful holiday in what seems like forever. So peaceful.

Hearing Bea’s tinkling laugh in the distance, John peers over his sunglasses to see her frolicking around the lush garden, hair glimmering in the sunshine. She is inexplicably naked.

“Bea, sweetheart,” he calls out to her, “what happened to your clothes?”

“It’s hot!” she calls back, and stops to inspect one of the sprinklers.

John shrugs. They’re miles from anywhere, no-one can see, and it is brightly hot, after all.

“Put your little shoes on, okay? You wouldn’t want to step on anything sharp.”

“Yes, Papa.” Bea drones, and pauses her activities to find and put on her sandals before resuming her blissful streaking. _Ah, to be five years old in the summer,_ John thinks wistfully.

“Ooh, Pimms? Lovely.” Comes a voice from his other side. There’s a clink of ice cubes in a glass, and the trickle of liquid as Sherlock helps himself to a cocktail. “Gorgeous weather.” He adds.

“Mm.” John agrees. “Couldn’t have asked for a better holiday. We should drive down to Brighton tomorrow.”

“I hate Brighton,” Sherlock complains. “So tacky and ugly and noisy. Just thinking about all that neon and the stench of all the food stalls and the petrol-powered amusements is enough to give a person a migraine. “

“Perhaps a person who’s a bit sensitive to overstimulation.”

“A compromise, then? We go to the beach instead.”

“We drive down there tonight for dinner, show Bea the pier and the lights, and then head to the beach tomorrow.”

“You strike a hard bargain, but alright.” Sherlock concedes. After a thoughtful pause, he adds, “Bea ought to be wearing sunscreen if she isn’t wearing clothes.”

John thinks that if there’s anything funnier in life than watching his mad, brilliant husband chase his naked, wily daughter around the garden brandishing a bottle of sunscreen, he hasn’t seen it.

Until Sherlock catches up to Bea, manages to apply two white smears to her face before she uses Sherlock’s greasy hands against him and manages to slip out of his grasp and take off again.

 

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After watching the sunset, they drive down into the city. The lights are vibrant and there’s laughter in the streets. Dinner is at a charming French restaurant, and the trio glut themselves on local mussels drenched in buttery sauce.

Bea orders chocolate mousse for dessert but ends up feeding most of it to Sherlock, mainly because she’s never seen him eat so much in one sitting before and is mildly fascinated by how much food he can consume when he actually wants to.

After that, a walk on the pier, stopping of course to inspect the famous wreck that is the old pier, burnt down in the seventies. Staring at it, John feels a sudden urge to dig out all his old Who records, even though he was not much of a mod or rocker in his younger days.

“I like all the pretty flags.” Bea says as they pass a street that is almost all pubs, decked out in bright rainbow colours.

“They’re gay pride flags,” Sherlock explains, “Brighton is the gay capitol of the UK, so there are lots of gay bars and pubs.”

She nods in understanding. “Oh. Is that why we came here, then? So you can be with the other gay people?”

Sherlock grins at John over Bea’s head, daring him to say something. It’d been a long time since he’d dragged out his weary protest of “I’m not actually gay”, what with him being married to his very male best friend and everything. These days John considered himself ‘sort of bisexual maybe’, and that was good enough.

“Yup. That’s why we’re here.” John says defiantly, and plants a kiss on the corner of Sherlock’s smug, upturned mouth.

“You kiss enough at home…” Bea whines between them, pouting.

 

 

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John also happens to think that if there’s any better way to orgasm than on the silk sheets of a four-poster bed while your lover rides and straddles your lap like a master horseman, he hasn’t done it yet.

Until he finds himself bent over the smooth granite of an antique claw-footed bathtub until he can barely hold himself up. And then shares a luxurious bath with his aforementioned lover.

Blowjobs in heirloom libraries are also quite enjoyable.

“You’re really fucking rich.” John gasps, fingers scrabbling for purchase on a dusty shelf.

Sherlock’s mouth pops off John’s prick for a moment of contemplation.

“I hadn’t really noticed.” He admits, before dragging his tongue up the underside of John’s cock in a way that makes John blush the next day when they are at the beach, surrounded by people eating melting ice cream cones.

 

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“Why won’t Daddy come in the sea?” Bea asks as John holds her at the waist, holding her up as she kicks her legs in the water.

“He’d rather hide under the parasol and not get sunburnt.”

“But Daddy loves swimming.”

John frowns in confusion. “Does he?”

“Uh-huh! He’s really fast and good, like a shark. One time he took off all his clothes and jumped in this really gross-looking river to find a gun.”

“Is that right…”

“When he got out he was all slimy and his lips were blue, like an alien.”

“That’s nice.”

“Boys look weird without clothes on.”

“I’m glad you think so.” John says, smiling.

 

000000000000000000000000000000000000000

 

Bea and John sleep for most of the drive home.

Bea was sad to say goodbye to the sprawling decadence of the manor, but was happy to go back to their little flat in London as she missed her stuffed animals and Mrs Hudson.

Although being overall quite relaxed during their holiday, by the end of the week Sherlock was itching to get back to London as well. His complaints of there being nothing to do in the countryside were getting louder and more frequent until Bea put an empty suitcase on his head.

Sitting in the driver’s seat now, John notices fondly that Sherlock’s cheeks and nose are tinted pink.

“I had a good time. Thanks.” John says, unnecessarily. _I appreciate you_ , is what he means.

Sherlock nods, his hair bobbing in the wind. “Quite alright.”


	13. Sherlock- Eclipse

Friday

9.12pm: Lying in wait for Devan Tatou in the alley outside of his family’s restaurant, posing as a buyer for his smuggled pills. Have been exchanging emails and phonecalls under an alias to set up the buy for almost a week now, he will not be pleased when I back out on the deal and try to run, leading him right into a swarm of police officers.

9.28pm: Come on, Devan. Bored by myself. John at home with Bea.

9.54pm: Devan Tatou arrives! Go along with boring small talk in hideously obvious code. Obtain the bottles of pills, flash the money and then cut and run. Everything to plan.

10.00pm: Tatou faster runner than size would indicate. Caught up to me, grabbed me, brief scuffle and took the money. Bolts.

Success! He runs straight into the police blockade.

Suddenly aware of warm, wet feeling around front of shirt and trousers.

Have I wet myself? Haven’t done so since early childhood. Hard to tell in dark alleyway.

Touch fingers to rapidly-spreading wet patch, examine.

Interesting. Not urine, but blood. Lots of it.

Why sudden blood-soaked clothing? Physical altercation with suspect was minimal.

Spontaneous inexplicable menstruation? Would be incredible scientific breakthrough. Might also explain underlying nausea and vague pain in abdomen.

Flashing lights and shouting in distance. “Someone get a medic, he’s been stabbed!”

Someone’s been stabbed? Exciting! Look around but feel dizzy and very nauseous. Probably still getting used to newly-grown man-uterus and various accessories.

Am suddenly swarmed by paramedics. Can’t blame their curiosity I suppose. Could serve as the topic for a Nobel prize-winning study.

Nice young female paramedic touches my cheek. “Can you tell me your name?”

“I keep bleeding. My clothes are going to be ruined. How do you cope?”

She laughs. “Come into the back of the ambulance, we’ve got lots of nice pads and gauze.”

“Oh, good. I heard someone got stabbed, you should tend to them while you’re here.”

She laughs again. Bit rude, really. They could be dying.

Lie down in back of ambulance. Decide to close my eyes for a bit.

Hateful people slapping my face and shouting. I’ve just caught them a smuggler, don’t I get a break?

 

Saturday

1.12am: Apparently I was stabbed. Don’t know how I didn’t notice, likely went into shock.

John absolutely incandescent with rage. Bea tearful, uncharacteristically meek and clingy. Terrified I will die like her mother. Won’t leave my bedside.

“You selfish…” John begins, then stops. “How could you- do you have any idea- so reckless, you..”

Continues angry spluttering, occasionally interjecting with “Thank god, thank god..” and kissing my hair.

On so many painkillers can barely move. Hospital room pleasantly flickery and melty around the edges.

3.14am: Wake up suddenly. Had odd dream that Mycroft visited, held my hand. Rubbed a thumb over each knuckle like when I was little.

John asleep in chair at bedside. Bea not present.

Find a little note clipped to my IV bag. ‘Bea is at home with Harry.’

John’s cheek falls off his fist and he wakes. Looks up at me.

“You okay?” he asks.

“I’m in a lot of pain.”

“Shall I call the nurse?”

“Yeah. It hurts, John.”

John hugs my head. He smells comforting.

“You’re crying.” He says softly. Sounds surprised.

Nurse arrives, tops up my morphine, leaves again.

Look up at John.

“You still love me?”

Wipes tears off my face with thumb. “Yeah. ‘Course I do.”

“Sorry for being shit.”

“You’re brilliant.”

Sleep comes like a blow to the head.

 

10.30am: Wake up with searing abdominal pain. Howl in pain, eyes leak tears again.

Bea jumps back from bedside, terrified. “Papa! Papa!”

“It’s alright, love.” John’s voice so scratchy. “His bladder’s full, it’s tugging on his stitches. That’s all.”

Fumble around with self. “Am I wearing a catheter?”

“Yeah, you are. You can just go.”

Pain lessens dramatically. So undignified.

Bea gets into bed with me, carefully cuddles me.

“I’m alright, Bea. I’m not going to die.”

“You can’t die. You can’t.”

“I’m not going to. Were you okay with Harry?”

“She’s cool and nice and pretty. But I wanted to be here with you, not with her.”

“I’m sorry, Bea. Dads aren’t supposed to be reckless.”

“I don’t care. You’re my dad, I don’t want a different one.”

“Don’t say that, John’s sitting right there.”

Bea laughs a bit. Fall asleep holding her.

1pm: Wake up utterly delirious with morphine. Mrs Hudson snivelling at the foot of my bed.

“You stupid boy.”

“Unnnhhhh.”

“You’ve no idea what you put us through, do you? You think you don’t matter to anyone.”

“Mmnngh.”

Pets my hair. Harry’s face floats into view.

“Hey. Looks like they’re giving you the good shit, I’m jealous.”

Smile at her.

“I had a nice time with Bea. She’s a sweetie. It’s pretty cool to have a niece without the gross, drooly baby part.”

Nod a little.

“Johnny absolutely shit a brick. But I s’pose you feel bad enough, so I won’t go on about it. And you know how he loves to worry.”

“I wish you weren’t so doped up, then you could tell me which nurses are single.” she adds.

4pm: Dreamt of Mycroft visiting again. Holding my hand and muttering.

_Mon frère, what a fine mess you’ve made. What would Mummy say?_

Other hand slightly bloodied, have been pulling at the IV’s cannula in my sleep. Nurse has re-taped it.

6pm: John reading trashy detective novel to me.

Crime novels don’t work like real life. It’s never the most obvious suspect, it’s always the last person you’d expect.

I hope when John gets his first book about me published, he leaves out the parts where I was disappointing.

I can’t handle John’s disappointment, I live for his praise.

All the famous novel detectives have flaws, but they’re still likeable. I hope he edits me kindly.

7pm: “John, are there any non-flawed fictional detectives?”

“Hmm… Not really. Bergerac was a drunk, Poirot had OCD…”

“Miss Marple was more of a nosy neighbour than a detective.”

“Columbo was an arsehole, and he had a glass eye.”

“What about Nancy Drew?”

“Total slut. She was sucking off the Hardy Boys between cases.”

Laugh even though it hurts.

 

Sunday

9.30am: I hate this doctor. No wonder she’s getting divorced, I’d rather drink wasps than spend ten more minutes with her.

10am: I have to be able to get out bed unassisted before I am allowed to go home. Simple.

10.05am: I have to be able to get out of bed unassisted without taking any morphine.

How utterly barbaric.

11am: Bea has made me a Get Well Soon card with a rather menacing looking swarm of butterflies on the front. Except, it doesn’t say ‘Get well soon’, it says ‘Get well now’ instead.

I suppose it’s motivational in a way.

1pm: I am going to do this. I am not staying in this hospital another night.

1.10pm: Note to self, unplug IV from wall next time. Am bleeding from torn-out cannula quite profusely.

3.00pm: Discharged! Oh, thank all of the gods, scientists and philosophers. I am free.

3.30pm: Peculiar atmosphere in flat. Am in the doghouse with John, but because I’m so injured and frail he can’t shout at me or throw things. He’s in the kitchen drinking tea and chatting with Harry. Bea is singing to me.

3.54pm: I do wish John wouldn’t enforce his musical tastes on her. She is singing all kinds of bizarre things about diamonds and walruses and octopi. I still applauded though.

5pm: John has hidden my pills. I should report him for medical malpractice, it’s illegal to hide someone’s medication.

5.30pm: And he felt me up when he was giving me a spongebath. Still, he gave me a pill so I don’t really mind.

7pm: “You should text your brother, he came to visit you a few times, you know. He was worried about you.”

I shall pretend I didn’t hear that.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, Nancy Drew. My stepdad made that joke about her and it was too funny not to share.


	14. Sherlock- Convalesce

Monday

11am: Knife wound in belly healing slowly, but no sign of infection. John regularly changes the dressing and cleans with alcohol wipes.

11.05: Bea exhibiting new and alarming behaviour- absolutely refuses to leave me for even a second. No doubt this new separation anxiety is linked to my injury and her mother’s death but it’s incredibly trying.

Have tried to gently explain to her that I won’t die if she lets me out of her sight. She nodded acceptingly and said that she’d rather not risk it, if I didn’t mind terribly.

 

 

12am: “Bea, I am trying to use the toilet.”

She sits down on the tiles. “Okay, Daddy.”

“What I mean is, I would prefer to empty my bladder without you watching.”

“Oh! Sorry.”

Bea shuffles around on her rear so she is facing away from me.

“When I showed you how to pick locks, I didn’t do it so that you could burst in on me in the bathroom.”

A pause, then, “You smell like hospital.”

 

 

 

2.13pm: Wake up, bleary from painkillers to a heavy, child-shaped weight on chest.

“Daddy! Daddy! Wake up!” Urgent, frightened.

“What is it, what’s wrong?”

“I thought you were dead…” Bea sniffles.

“I’m not dead. I was sleeping. And you’re not supposed to sit on me after my surgery, you could disturb my sutures, remember?”

Weight suddenly lifted, hear John’s voice in the distance.

“Come on love, let Sherlock rest. Then he’ll be healed faster.”

Bea screeches in outrage and swings a fist at John’s face. “NO! Put me DOWN!”

“Hey, hey! No hitting, Bea!”

John takes her into another room but she keeps screaming at him.

 

 

 

7pm: “Bea, eat your dinner please.”

“Daddy’s not eating.”

“His medicine makes him very queasy, he can’t eat much. He’ll have some soup later. Just eat a bit, please.”

“I don’t want any.”

Open an eye, peer into kitchen area from sofa. Bea has been fighting John about her nutrition intake for almost twenty minutes.

Try to call “Bea, eat your dinner,” to her but it comes out slurred and unintelligible.

 

 

 

10pm: Lick at the salty skin of John’s neck. Chase it with lips, try to pin the flesh between teeth.

“Sherlock, you need to stay still.”

“You’re molesting me, how can I?”

“I’m _cleaning_ you, you smell.”

Seize a handful of muscular thigh. Dadydream of John in rugby shorts. “I’m particularly sweaty a little lower down.”

“Oh, here?” Pleasant rasp of warm, damp flannel on semi-erect prick.

Sigh happily. “Mm, there…”

John has masterful hands. Roll head on pillow from side to side, getting comfortable—

“Bea! You’re supposed to be in bed!” Almost kick John in the face with surprise. He quickly covers me with the duvet.

Receive a puzzled look from where she is standing in the doorway. “Can’t sleep. I want a story.”

John sighs. “I’ll come in and read to you in a minute, okay?”

“No. I want Daddy.”

“John’s just giving me a bath, darling.”

Bea drops her pillow to the floor and starts wailing unhappily.

“It’s alright, Bea, come here…” Try to pull up pyjama bottoms as gently as possible.

 

 

11pm: Bea insists on sleeping between John and I like a tiny, adorable barricade. Every time he reaches for me, she grizzles in her sleep.

“What do we do?” he whispers.

Shrug. “It’ll pass.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“We invest in better locks.”


	15. Bea - Listen Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> featuring Harriet Watson.

I am at Auntie Harry’s house and I’m ANGRY.

Auntie Harry says if you’re feeling upset but don’t know what to do about it, you should write about it. She says that writing in a diary helped her think about her feelings and not get drunk instead.

(I think that’s why Papa started a blog about Daddy.)

I am angry because Papa sent me away to stay with Auntie Harry and wouldn’t let me look after Daddy even though he got really hurt and needed looking after.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Auntie Harry. She’s cool and pretty and funny and she and Papa are twins but not identical twins. She wears cool-looking jewellery and much brighter clothes than Papa. They don’t seem to get along, though. Papa gets grumpy if I talk about her, exactly like how Daddy is about Uncle Mycroft.

(I’m glad I’m an only child.)

The problem is, I need to be at home, in our flat. I need to look after Daddy. He’s really weak and can’t walk properly and his medicine makes him look pale and sick.

I’m angry that he got stabbed, too. If I was talking to Papa, which I’m NOT, we could talk about how we are both angry at Daddy for letting himself get stabbed. It was a really stupid, dangerous thing to do.

And if that wasn’t enough, Daddy wouldn’t even do what the doctor said and lie down so his stitches don’t come out. How hard is it to just lie down? He kept getting up and wandering around like there was nothing wrong with him, even though I could tell he was hurting really badly.

So, I had to start following him around. I didn’t have any choice.

(And I was having nightmares. Nightmares where I’m hiding in the wardrobe at my old house when my mum was dying but when I try to look at her body she’s Daddy and he’s bleeding all over the floor with a knife sticking out of him.)

I had just confiscated a book from Daddy when Papa came and sat me down in my time-out corner. I thought that was a bit unfair as I’d already had two time-outs that day.

(One for hitting Papa when he wouldn’t let me help with Daddy’s bath and one for screaming at dinner because Daddy was too sick to eat so I didn’t want to eat either.)

Papa explained that he couldn’t look after Daddy and I at the same time. I said that was fine, and that I could actually look after Daddy for him if he’d stop getting in the way all the time.

“No, love.” Papa said, and for a second he looked really tired and old. “I’m going to look after Sherlock, you’re going to stay with my sister, alright?”

It was not alright.

I screamed and threw things until Daddy actually got out of bed to see what was the matter. He had taken a lot of painkillers and his eyes looked strange, like he was sleepwalking.

“Bea,” he said like a zombie, “John is a doctor. Have some faith in him.”

I cried and said no, I didn’t want to. That I needed to stay and make sure he was alright. But they both said no and there was nothing I could do.

Eventually I got so tired from crying that I must have fallen asleep, because when I woke up I was with Auntie Harry. And that’s where I am now.

 

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

 

Auntie Harry let me stay up past my bedtime and let me watch a cool film about serial killers.

I still want to go home.

Papa called a few times but I didn’t want to talk to him so I pretended to be asleep every time Auntie Harry tried to put me on the phone. That’ll show him.

 

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

 

Sometimes when she’s talking really fast, Auntie Harry does this strange thing with her hands, like she’s making pictures for the words she’s saying.

“Why do you make pictures with your hands?” I asked her.

“Oh!” she laughed. “I didn’t realise I was doing it.”

She said that she has a girlfriend who is deaf, and they talk in sign language, which is how deaf people talk. She spells out words on her fingers or makes signs for things. Apparently she’s gotten so used to doing the hand signs as she talks she’s started doing it without even noticing.

She taught me a few things in sign language. I can spell my name, say ‘hello’, ‘goodbye’, ‘thank you’ and ‘I love you’. I’ve been practising, so I can show Daddy when he’s better.

 

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

 

I spoke to Papa on the phone.  I was starting to forget what his voice sounded like, and Auntie Harry does not sound like him at all.

“Your father’s got a real beauty on his abdomen, it looks like a caesarean scar.”

I asked him what kind of scar that was and he said that sometimes instead of pushing a baby out of her body, a woman can have it cut right out of her tummy. (“Like a tumour,” I heard Daddy say in the background.)

I giggled. “People will think he had a baby.”

“You’re our baby, Bea.”

“But you didn’t grow me in your belly, my mum did.”

“That’s true. She was a very special lady to have managed to make such a lovely girl. Hopefully with Sherlock’s scar and your middle name, we’re about even.”

“But I don’t have a middle name…” I said. I didn’t even have a last name before I got Daddy and Papa.

“Of course you do, love. It’s Natalie.”

I was quiet for a second.

“But that’s my mum’s name.”

“We gave it to you in memory of her,” Papa said. “Beatrice Natalie Holmes.”

Then Daddy started complaining in the background, and he sounded much more awake.

“I told you to put Watson on her papers! I don’t want her tarred with the same brush as my brother and insufferable relatives.”

“But it makes her sound so ladylike. Victorian, almost.”

I said goodbye to them both and sat on the sofa feeling funny inside. Like now that I had my mum’s name, she was right inside my head.

Auntie Harry hugged me until she fell asleep. I stayed awake for a bit counting her eyelashes and looking at the lines around her eyes.

 

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

 

I came home today! Daddy picked me up and hugged me and it didn’t hurt him at all.

I wonder how Papa got him to lie down for so long that he healed.

 


	16. John- And So It Is, Just Like You Said It Would Be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title from "The Blower's Daughter" by Damien Rice

The Sussex house is much more suited to entertaining guests, John thinks, knocking dust from a cushion in the living room. It doesn’t have the same quirky charm as 221B Baker Street, and there are times when, yes, John has to admit he misses London, and the thrill of his old life. But his current life in Sussex, in what had just been once stiffly named ‘the Holmes’ manor’, is now just as colourful and rich as John could possibly want. He has to admit he’s getting old, too. He knew he wouldn’t be able to go chasing around after Sherlock through alleyways forever, and he finds that he’s alright with it. They have something different now, and neither of them would swap it for the world.

Going into the first guest bedroom on his right, he finds Hamish unloading his over-stuffed backpack and carefully removing his battered acoustic guitar from its case.

“Hey, Pop.” Hamish grins.

Hamish is 25 and strikingly handsome these days. His bright green eyes stand out radiantly from his dusky olive skin and dark mess of curls, which today are pulled into a loose ponytail.

“God, your hair’s getting long!” John laughs, ruffling his son’s head and trapping him in an affectionate headlock.

“Yeah, yeah, I just haven’t got round to cutting it,” he replies, slipping out of John’s grip.

“Train journey alright?”

“Eh, not bad. Did a bit of writing on my way.”

Hamish is so different to Bea, John thinks. Where she is all fire and energy and action, Hamish is relaxed, peaceful and content. He’d been a much easier child, although Bea had certainly been good practise for both John and Sherlock, and by the time they’d adopted Hamish, they felt like they were old hands at parenting.

“Did you speak to Bea on your way up? I can’t get hold of her.”

Hamish shrugs. “I dunno when she’ll get here. You know how busy she is.”

“Oh, yes.” John agrees readily. “Never sits still, that one. Anyway, I’ll see you at dinner?”

“See you then.”

Sitting cross-legged on his childhood bed, Hamish begins tuning his guitar, and John decides to take a walk outside to the front gates.

 

 

 

“I cannot believe they just _gave_ you this, Nikolai.”

“Um, excuse me? I made that old fossil a metric shit-ton of money, this was the least they could offer me,” Nikolai scoffs, waving an arm towards the incredibly shiny new car parked by the front lawn. His sharp, black suit looks like it cost about as much as said car.

Will, clad in worn denims and a cardigan, rubs his face and groans. “All because you knocked up some five-second film about- what was it again?”

“Cell phones, the client had just brought out a new range of cell phones.” Nikolai replies impatiently.

“You mean mobile phones, right? You definitely _talk_ like an advertising big cheese.”

“That’s because I _am_ , brother mine, a big cheese. The biggest, cheesiest cheese on the block.”

“Boys?” John calls from behind the two young men.

They turn and smile at him in perfect, yet unintentional unison. “Hi Pop!”

John receives a hug from both twins and looks them both over.

“Looks like not sharing a flat any more isn’t hurting you any.” John observes. The brothers had been living together just north of London for a few years before Nikolai decided he wanted a bigger place and Will had gone back to university to complete his teacher training.

Nikolai shrugs. “I kind of miss having Will around to do my laundry.”

“And cook your food.” Will interjects.

“Oh, you’re such a mother hen, why don’t you go mark some homework.”

Butting in again, John asks, “Have you been to visit Molly lately?”

“We saw her last weekend. She and Uncle Greg had just been on holiday.” Will says, cleaning his glasses on the edge of his cardigan.

“He asked after you and Dad. Wants to get the old band back together, maybe.” Nikolai adds.

The Greg in question is no other than Greg Lestrade, who has been married to Molly for coming up on ten years.

That is, not before Molly had given John and Sherlock the most incredible gift any friend had ever given them. The idea had stemmed from a drunken, half-joking conversation between the three of them, that suddenly mutated from “ _wouldn’t it be funny if_ ” to “ _I actually really want to do this_ ”.

John and Sherlock had presented Molly with two identical bottles, each containing a sperm sample. She’d taken them to the hospital with her, and then in what seemed like hardly any time at all, in a dark ultrasound suite,

_Congratulations, it’s twins._

John had burst into happy, ridiculous tears. Sherlock had let out a peal of disbelieving laughter, and then turned to check if Molly was alright, because she was looking distinctly pale at the news.

(Bea was singularly unimpressed and Hamish was just excited to spend more time with Molly.)

Up until the twins were five or six, they really just looked like Molly, all fair hair and bright eyes. But then, their faces began to fill out, and as they grew, John grew to recognise those cheekbones. He would often find the boys in the garden playing ‘Murderer Burying Corpses’ (Will was always the corpse, never the murderer, being a minute or two younger than Nikolai) or trying to keep pet frogs using behavioural conditioning.

It was then, John realised which sperm had won the race. He’d recognise Holmes DNA anywhere.

“Do either of you know what time we’re expecting Bea?” John now asks his twenty-something boys, each so different and yet identical.

“Nope.”

“Not heard a thing.”

“For goodness’ sake. She could answer her phone.” John grumbles.

“She’s probably sitting on a witness or waterboarding a judge.” Nikolai (named by Sherlock after Nikolai Tesla, incidentally) suggests.

“I suppose she’ll come when she comes,” he concedes. “How about your father, where’s he?”

“Dad was in the kitchen a minute ago,” says Will.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you had a boyfriend, Willy. I’m hurt.” Nikolai says suddenly.

“I was going to! I just wasn’t expecting Dad to take one look at me and blurt it out like that.”

“Have you _met_ Dad? And is this guy _really_ a male model?”

“A male model, Will? Very nice.” John teases.

“Weren’t you looking for Dad, or Bea or someone, Pop?” sighs Will.

“Oh, yes. See you both at dinner,” he says hurriedly, and heads back into the house.

 

Sherlock in fact _is_ in the kitchen. He’s sipping a glass of wine- John still finds him eminently attractive, with his grey-peppered temples, still-piercing eyes, and height that age has not managed to diminish, at least not yet- and trying to placate Charlie.

“It’s fine, really, just shove it in the oven and sit down.”

“But the beds aren’t even made,” Charlie complains, holding a dish containing a beautifully marinated whole chicken between her oven mitts.

“They can make their own beds, Hamish sleeps in a bloody hammock most of the time from what I can tell.”

“Alright, Daddy. I just want it to be nice for everyone while we’re all here together for once.”

Charlie is 17 and just as beautiful as the rest of their children, her straight black hair shining in the afternoon light through the kitchen window, and delicate Korean features slightly furrowed as she pouts at Sherlock.

Charlie is the youngest member of the family, and all of them, in their own subtle ways, are very protective of her. Even Bea, who insisted she was in no way interested in “another stupid baby” in the house, still made it wide knowledge at their school that anyone who picked on Charlie would end up on the business end of a beating. Or being charmed to death by an overly-pleasant Hamish, or the victim of psychological warfare from the twins.

In the kitchen now, John pulls Charlie away from her cooking and hugs her, her head under his chin. She smells sweet, like she always has, right from when she was a constant bundle of blankets in Sherlock’s arms and he would endlessly carry her around, talking softly to her and kissing her and comparing her to a ladybird of all things, always _his little ladybird_.

At the time, John had found Sherlock’s ridiculous doting on Charlie hopelessly endearing, but now he looks at the two of them, and he sees that their other children growing up and becoming independent had happened all too fast, and that in Charlie, there was a tiny glimmer of selfish hope that Sherlock could keep one child forever.

For her part, Charlie doesn’t mind at all. She is a daddy’s girl through and through, and has already announced that she does not plan to move out of the family home when she begins university next year. She’s a shy thing and doesn’t want to go to a place full of people she doesn’t know.

She leans up and kisses John’s cheek. “Papa. Did you see the boys are all here?”

“Yes, love. Now all we need is Bea, and we’ll have the full set.”

“Bea texted me saying she will be arriving shortly, and no, Charlie, you can’t have a glass of wine.” Sherlock says from the kitchen table.

“Oh, well thanks for telling me.” John says, throwing his hands in the air in resignation.

“Daddy, I’m 18 in 6 months! Can’t I have just one?”

“Alright, one with dinner, not now.”

Charlie finishes making her last preparations for their meal and sits down next to Sherlock at the table, her head resting on his shoulder. She tells him about her latest theoretical physics assignment and he hums approvingly. John hovers, smiling at them both absently for a while, and then his whole flock descend on the kitchen at once to mark the arrival of Bea.

“Family, I have returned,” Bea announces, dressed as sharply as Nikolai and with her blonde hair in a stylish bob. Recently turned 27, she is a formidable figure of a woman, as John had always known she would be.

The younger siblings bombard her with greetings and questions and many hugs are exchanged. Then Bea is kissed by each parent, first John, “ _Hello sweetheart, don’t you look lovely_ ,”, and then Sherlock, “ _Ah, the prodigal first-born returns. Still bringing the justice system to its knees?_ ” At last, John, Sherlock and their five children seat themselves in the dining room for dinner.

John looks around the table, his face split in a grin and his heart brimming over with joy. His life may not be high-octane dangerous excitement any more, but it is full of laughter and wonder. John will always be grateful to Sherlock, the man who brought him both heady thrills, and sweet calm.

How funny it is that starting a family with Sherlock had been so sudden and unexpected in John’s eyes. These days, it feels like some long-fulfilled destiny. Bea was only the beginning. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, finally I've drawn this series to a close. I hope Bea having a ton of little brothers and sisters was a nice surprise for everyone? I'm a big sap at heart, whatever.
> 
> I've really enjoyed writing this series and your feedback has been wonderful and encouraged me to write every word. Thank you all so much for coming on this ridiculous journey with me, you're the best!
> 
> For the moment, I'm taking a break from writing Sherlock fic until series 3 airs. Which is not long now. Apparently. /bitter laughter
> 
> For those interested, my next work is going to be in the Welcome To Night Vale fandom. See you on the other side.


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